{"product_id":"scandinavians-isbn-9781468314823","title":"Scandinavians","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“An engaging, layered look into a culture complex enough both to produce stylish rain gear and to embrace the foul weather that necessitates it.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe fill our homes with Nordic furniture; we envy their humane social welfare system and healthy outdoor lifestyle; we devour their crime fiction. Even their strangely attractive melancholia seems to express a stoic, commonsensical acceptance of life's vicissitudes. But how valid is this outsider's view of Scandinavia, and how accurate is our picture of life in Scandinavia today?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScandinavians follows a chronological progression across the Northern centuries: the Vendel era of Swedish prehistory; the age of the Vikings; the Christian conversions of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland; the unified Scandinavian state of the late Middle Ages; the sea-change of the Reformation; the kingdom of Denmark-Norway; King Gustav Adolphus and the age of Sweden's greatness; the cultural golden age of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Munch; the impact of the Second World War; Scandinavia's postwar social democratic nirvana; and the terror attack of Anders Behring Breivik.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScandinavians is also a personal investigation, with award-winning author \u003cb\u003eRobert Ferguson\u003c\/b\u003e as the ideal companion as he explores not only the region's society, politics, culture, and temperament, but also wide-ranging topics such as the power and mystique of Scandinavian women, from the Valkyries to the Vikings; from Nora and Hedda to Garbo and Bergman.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A delightful history in which the author truly captures 'the soul of the North.' ”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harry N. Abrams","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44894853562597,"sku":"NP9781468314823","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/scandinavians-isbn-9781468314823","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}